Writing a summer job resume requires identifying your ideal summer job, crafting a targeted objective statement, and listing all of your academic accomplishments, specialized skills, and employment and volunteer experiences. A high quality summer job resume will clearly and succinctly highlight the skills and experiences that qualify you for your ideal summer job. If you have very little formal work experience, you will want to avoid a chronological format in favor of a targeted or functional resume.

Whether you are a high school or college student or a new graduate, summer job resume writing requires first identifying your ideal summer job and investigating its requirements. If you are a first time job hunter you may not have a clear idea of the types of jobs that most appeal to you. To identify a particular field and job of interest, think about the activities and tasks that you most enjoy doing. You might like working with your hands, writing, organizing, working with computers, and/or helping people. Reviewing employer job descriptions and qualifications listings for positions of interest will help you to articulate your relevant skills on a summer job resume.

After identifying a specific job type, write an objective statement that gives employers a clear indication of the type of job you are seeking. The objective statement should be concise and well-aligned with your intended position. It will appear at the top of your resume, right below your name, address, and phone number. Employers look to this statement as an explanation of your specific goal in applying for the position. For example, if you are applying for a job as a data-entry clerk, your objective statement might read, “To gain experience in a large corporation as a data-entry clerk.”

The format of your summer job resume may be chronological, functional, or targeted, depending on your prior experience. If you have years of continuous work experience and can list multiple jobs, a chronological resume will best highlight your accomplishments. A targeted resume is only ideal if your background is perfectly suited to the job, and outlines extensive, specialized experience. If you have little to no work experience a functional resume might be best, and lists academic accomplishments, volunteer work, specialized skills, and categories of activities, such as student leadership experience. With this type of resume, be sure to highlight a high grade point average, a fast typing speed, academic awards, and all skills that reflect your ability to be an outstanding employee.

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indigomothPost 3

@Iluviaporos - It depends on what kind of resume we're talking about here though. There are plenty of places that will find you a summer job and if you just blurt everything onto the page, they might find you the wrong one.

For example, I can speak French. But the one time I told them that at an agency, they started giving me translation jobs, which I really didn't want.

Editing to make sure that you get what you want isn't out of the question.

lluviaporosPost 2

@Ana1234 - I think it's a rare college or high school student who has enough experience to need to closely tailor their resume towards a particular job. When I was that age I basically just put every scrap of pertinent information about me onto the page and hoped for the best.

No, my job working for a convenience store might not seem like it's directly relevant to a design internship, but it's all I've got, so it would go on there for both that and the nanny job and anything else I'm applying for.

I basically just find a job resume template and fill it in neatly.

Ana1234Post 1

Ideally you won't just write one resume which targets one kind of job, you'll rewrite it for several different kinds of jobs. There's no point in carefully crafting it to make yourself look like the perfect nanny and then submitting it to design internships as well.

And part time summer jobs are very difficult to find, since everyone is going to be looking for them at the same time. No matter how much you want your perfect job you might have to settle for something else. Spread your net widely.

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